This is the last week before the regular season starts, so it's our last opportunity to talk about preseason fantasy drafts. So, let's talk about rankings.

Speaking of rankings, we have those in the 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide! Along with rankings, there are projections, line combinations, prospect upsides, and a whole lot more. It has also been constantly updated, and will be until the season starts, so the information is up to date. Go grab your copy right now!

And don't forget to check out GoaliePost, for all your starting goalie confirmation needs through the season.

First, some notes from yesterday's training camp action:

• Kyle Palmieri was on the ice for the Islanders. If he can get up to speed over the next week, it kills the potential fantasy value for guys like Hudson Fasching and Oliver Wahlstrom.
• Josh Norris was not on the ice for Ottawa and with the season less than a week away, his availability for opening night is in question.
• Winnipeg got back the players battling illness and that meant Gabriel Vilardi on the top line and Nikolaj Ehlers on the second line next to Cole Perfetti. Seeing Ehlers back on the ice is a great sign.
• Andrei Svechnikov is still practicing in a non-contact jersey, which isn't a great sign.
• New Jersey practice with, more or less, their expected NHL lineup and Alex Holtz remained on the second line where he's been all preseason.
• St. Louis is sticking with a loaded top line of Pavel Buchnevich, Robert Thomas, and Jordan Kyrou for now. Let's hope it holds up all season.
• There was no official timeline given for Flames forward Jakob Pelletier following his shoulder surgery but it will be in the new year.
• Buffalo sent Jiri Kulich and Isak Rosen to the AHL, but still have Zach Benson on the roster.

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New Jersey basically had their entire NHL roster in the lineup for Wednesday night’s preseason game against the New York Rangers, and their two power play units looked like this (from Frozen Tools):

That looks like two split units to me. This is bad news for the power play upside of guys like Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes, and good for guys like Alex Holtz and Luke Hughes.

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Moving on, my skater projections were finished last week – rookies are the last thing to add – and that allows comparisons across players and positions. I use a method developed by Tanner Bell, a fantasy baseball prognosticator, called Standings Gain Points (SGP). It just looks at what a player is expected to produce in a specific category, how much that player can provide above/below a replacement-level option for a specific league, and repeating that for each fantasy hockey category to come up with a single SGP number. That is done for both forwards and defencemen, so it can provide relative values at each position, and thus allows us to compare between forwards and defencemen. It just helps in accounting for positional scarcity.

These rankings use goals, assists, power play points, shots, hits, and blocks for skaters, all players are projected for 82 games, and we are just using Forward and Defence designations. Data is from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and AllThreeZones.

Connor McDavid

The purpose is to look for draft values, but we need to start with McDavid. His level of fantasy dominance is unparalleled, and this season's projection carries an SGP impact that is 24% higher than the next-closest player. It is also twice as high as JT Miller, my 12^th-ranked forward:

After selecting McDavid first overall, it then becomes a game of accumulating value. Last season, a lot of McDavid drafters ended up with Jonathan Huberdeau at the 2/3 turn, and McDavid+Huberdeau was often a worse duo than Leon Draisaitl and Juuse Saros or David Pastrnak and Mitch Marner, for example. Getting McDavid gives fantasy owners a nice head start, but avoiding the landmines at the turn is imperative. I wonder how many managers have already drafted, took McDavid first overall, and got Andrei Vasilevskiy at the 2/3 turn.

Second Tier Wingers

After the top wingers like David Pastrnak and Matthew Tkachuk, I have a four-man group of wingers that are all valued similarly overall:

On Underdog Fantasy, which uses a points system with the six categories mentioned, the differences in ADP between these four guys is stark for early picks:

• Mikko Rantanen – ADP of 7.0
• Alex Ovechkin – ADP of 14.7
• Timo Meier – ADP of 16.5
• Mitch Marner – ADP of 18.5

Nearly a full-round difference in the top two rounds between two guys that are separated by 4% in total projected value is… a lot. For anyone wondering, the reason for Rantanen’s overall projection being quite a bit lower than most places is the assumption he loses ice time as Colorado is (mostly) healthy and they rebuilt their third line. There is also a modest goal-scoring regression anticipated and those small differences matter a lot at the top of drafts.

Whether readers agree with these rankings or not, this highlights how players can be valued similarly even if they're completely different profiles: Marner is a high-end point producer that won't help much in peripherals; Ovechkin is a goal/shot/hit machine that could be a drag in areas like assists and blocks; Meier brings a balanced approach that will lean more peripherals than production; Rantanen also brings a balanced approach but will lean more production than peripherals. Four fantastic flanks, all with a similar season-long overall projection, but all expected to get to the same destination with various routes. This is why fantasy hockey rules.

Undervalued Forwards

I went and compared my rankings to Underdog's ADPs because of similar rankings systems and found some undervalued players. Things that may alter individual player values will be highlighted.

Aleksander Barkov

My ranking: Forward #18

Underdog Ranking: Centre #15, ADP of 66.1

The crux here, obviously, is being projected for 82 games. He has missed 14 and 15 games in the last two seasons, respectively, and that's driven down his season-long value. His 82-game paces in those seasons were for 38 goals, 101 points, and 34 power play points. With good-but-not-great peripherals, 82 games of that makes a top-25 forward. Whether he can play even 75 games, let alone 80 or 82, is a fair question. What is also a fair question is how the team performs offensively without both Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad in the lineup. My projections assume they'll be just fine, but I might be underrating their loss.   

Joel Eriksson Ek

My Ranking: Forward #44

Underdog Ranking: Centre #27, ADP of 133.5

This is a guy that is projecting as one of the top multi-cat values around. There are very few players that can threaten 30 goals, 60 points, 20 PPPs, 250 shots, 125 hits, and 50 blocks. That kind of across-the-board performance can help float his fantasy value, especially in head-to-head formats where weeks without points can still bring value. In an ESPN league last year that uses this same scoring system, Eriksson Ek finished as the 52^nd forward overall. In these multi-cat formats, I'd much rather have him than Elias Lindholm or Mark Scheifele. Just watch for power play combinations because being off the top PP unit would really hamper the Minnesota centre's across-the-board value.

Sam Reinhart

My Ranking: Forward #47

Underdog Ranking: Centre #32, ADP of 154.6

Drafters may steer clear of Reinhart because he's looking set to open the season on Florida's third line, but we would do well to remember that's where he spent a lot of the 2021-22 season (about 37% of his even strength ice time). Over the last two years, Reinhart's on-ice goal rate at evens is lower without Barkov as his centre – 3.48 against 3.79 – but a decline of 8% is nothing to crater his value. He will still be on the top power play, is still a 30-goal, 70-point, 200-shot threat, and has generally been able to stay healthy for his career. On top of that, it may not be long before he's back on Barkov's wing anyway. He doesn't need 80 points to be a top-50 forward; that's what he was in that same ESPN league a year ago. Roope Hintz is going 7-8 rounds earlier on Underdog and that gap is tough to square.  

Robert Thomas

My Ranking: Forward #75

Underdog Ranking: Centre #59, ADP of 191.6

I get it. This is a guy with zero seasons over 20 goals, zero seasons over 115 shots, and zero seasons over 15 hits. Those are all very meagre totals for a forward projected inside the top-80, but once we get to this spot of drafts, there are problems with each player. Some don't shoot, some don't hit, some don't skate on the power play, and so on.

When it comes to Thomas, my projections are as follows:

His PP output is around 5 goals and 18 assists, giving him 23 PP points. All his fantasy value is tied up in production, namely sky-high assist totals. That is a dangerous way to live in the fantasy game because if his linemates have an unlucky season shooting percentage-wise, Thomas's value absolutely tanks.

In Thomas's favour, his assists/60 minutes at all strengths over the last two years is top-10 in the league, or a 95^th percentile mark. He saw a marginal TOI increase last year and another is assumed this year. A full, 82-game season at 19:45 a night is why this playmaker's assist projection exceeds 65.

Thomas is not a fantasy player to draft if 10 rounds have passed and your team needs to start building peripherals. But if a reader is doing a draft and has taken a lot of multi-cat performers early – Timo Meier, Andrei Svechnikov, Filip Forsberg, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Moritz Seider, Darnell Nurse, and the like – then bolstering that group with a production-heavy option like Thomas is appealing. He has emerged as one of the top playmakers in the league and there is still room for improvement in his shooting/goal-scoring profile.

Alright, let's get to a few defencemen.

The Ottawa Boys

The blueline in Canada's capital is fascinating. There are two proven, younger offensive defencemen in Thomas Chabot and Jakob Chychrun while Jake Sanderson's extension underscores how good his rookie season was, and how good the team thinks he'll be.

Chabot is in my top-10 projected defencemen, just behind Erik Karlsson and just ahead of Adam Fox. The big reason is very stout across-the-board production over the last two years: Chabot has averaged 12 goals, 51 points, 21 power play points, 218 shots, 98 hits, and 140 blocks every 82 games in that span. My projections assume he'll be on the top PP unit – whether in a 4F/1D or 3F/2D setup – and that, along with a lot of power play opportunities, should lead to more points. Staying healthy is paramount for Chabot's fantasy value as he's missed 20% of his games over the last three years. If he can stay on the ice, he may be one of the best draft values on the blueline this season.

The next problem, of course, is that power play role. Sanderson is taking some of the top PP duties in the preseason, with Chabot and Chychrun running the second unit. Ottawa is a team that has the talent to run two units, so it makes me wonder if they're not going to go the Seattle/Los Angeles route and split their PP time somewhat evenly. That would be a disaster for their top PP guys.

Chychrun is also inside my top-20 blueliners, mainly because of the peripherals and the ice time he's expected to get. Like Chabot, though, he needs to play 75+ games to earn this slotting. It is up to drafters whether he can do it.

Tony DeAngelo

Speaking of good draft values, DeAngelo is back in Carolina. He is also inside my top-25 defencemen by this scoring system, and he's not a guy who stuffs the peripheral categories. He may be on the third pair, but he should play close to 19 minutes, and that's all he needs to get to double-digit goals, 50+ points, and 20+ PP points. He was not brought back to Carolina to play lockdown defence, but specifically for the offence he can generate from the blueline. He is going 43^rd among rearguards on ESPN, 28^th on Yahoo, and 52^nd on Underdog. Playing a full season is always the question, of course, but even 65 games from him is worth being a top-40 defenceman off the board.

Miro Heiskanen and Evan Bouchard

One debate I've seen a lot this offseason is which defenceman is the better draft option between the two titular names. In my rankings, they are 10^th and 12^th among rearguards, respectively. That ranking for Bouchard is lower than where he's being drafted, and the big reason is ice time. Even in his big production stretch last year following the Tyson Barrie trade, Bouchard skated under 21 minutes a night. He was at 23 minutes in the postseason but that included three overtime games that all exceeded 24 minutes. In his nine non-overtime playoff games, he averaged 20 minutes a night. I will concede that if he skates 24 minutes a game this season, he's likely a top-10 fantasy defenceman and quite possibly top-5. If he skates 20-21 minutes a night, though, he will need other-worldly efficiency to pay off his current ADP.  

Overvaluations

Let's go through a few defenders that are being over-drafted, gauging by these projections:

Victor Hedman – The assumption is Mikhail Sergachev is the top PP guy in Tampa Bay for the vast majority of the season. Well over 40% of Hedman's point production over the last three years was on the power play. If his PP production is cut in half, it puts a 60-point season very much in doubt, and he loses a lot in the PP points category. The ice time drop also hurts his good-but-not-great peripheral production. I have no interest in drafting him as a top-15 defenceman.

Vince Dunn – My 40^th projected defenceman is often going as a top-30 option. These projections have serious concerns about Seattle repeating historic 5-on-5 shooting percentages, and thus Dunn repeating his career season.

Adam Fox – It isn't that he's expected to decline, but he's my 9^th-ranked defender and he's being drafted higher on all of ESPN, Yahoo, and Underdog. His lack of shots – he failed to reach just 160 shots in 2022-23 despite playing a whopping 2000 minutes – and complete avoidance of hits (55 over his last 160 games) hurts his across-the-board value a lot. I have Fox projected for over 80 points and he's still just my number-9 defenceman in multi-cat formats, to give an idea of how much the lack of shots and hits drag his value down. He is basically "What if Roman Josi, but with 125 fewer shots and half his hits?"

Alex Pietrangelo – This will depend on the league/site because he's just outside my top-25 defencemen (26^th, actually) but that would make him a decent draft value by Yahoo ADP (D24). It would also make him a bad draft value on Underdog (D16) and awful value on ESPN (D9). Not sure how many people realize Pietrangelo had a six-year low in shots per game last year and career-best assist marks at even strength. If he can't reach 200 shots, loses top PP status to Shea Theodore, sees his assist totals fall at even strength, and doesn't hit much to begin with, well, the multi-cat losses pile up.

Alright, that's it for rankings talk. This is the final weekend of drafting and I hope my writing – as well as everything else we offer at Dobber Hockey – has been or can be of help. For any final questions, reach out to me on Twitter or BlueSky at SlimCliffy.